


Touch

by She Wears Red (SheWearsRed)



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Coping, Cullen Rutherford has PTSD - Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, F/M, Light Bondage, Nipple Play, Soft Dom Cullen, Touch-Starved, Unexpected Kink, Vaginal Fingering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-13
Updated: 2021-02-13
Packaged: 2021-03-12 18:34:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29389203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SheWearsRed/pseuds/She%20Wears%20Red
Summary: Sometimes he can’t stand to be touched, but he wants so desperately to touch her.In which Cullen and Rosalind find compromise.
Relationships: Cullen Rutherford/Female Trevelyan, Cullen Rutherford/Trevelyan, Female Inquisitor/Cullen Rutherford, Inquisitor/Cullen Rutherford
Kudos: 19





	Touch

**Author's Note:**

> Do you ever have a prompt jump out at you for inexplicable reasons? No? Just me?

Sometimes he can’t stand to be touched, but he wants so desperately to touch her. 

When she lies on her side, turned away from him, her body is bathed in the red-gold glow from the fire crackling low in the stone hearth. She is warm to the touch when he traces the dip of her spine with a calloused fingertip; even in sleep she responds to his touch, a soft sigh tumbling from parted lips, brow furrowed, cheek pressed into her pillow. His fingers skim over the soft curve of her waist, palm perfectly fitted to the space between her ribs and her hip. With the brush of his hand along the soft skin of her thigh, he drags the fur blanket downward, exposing rosy skin, the dimples in her back, the dip of her tailbone. He thinks he could lie awake for hours, basking in a long overdue afterglow, simply admiring her with eyes and hands both. 

This is Cullen’s reward for endless nights spent awake while she’s gone, spent in the haze of lyrium withdrawal, or wandering Skyhold with a storm carried in his chest, wondering when or _if_ she’ll return this time. The hardest days are when Rosalind is gone, and of late, they are more often than not. And when she returns, and he feels he can breathe again, he has to relearn everything, it seems. The one thing that he doesn’t forget is how good it feels when they fall into each other again, the inevitable rush of relief and heartache. How they escape for hours, content to be spent with no one’s company but their own. Sometimes they simply go to the highest point on the battlements and, surrounded by sumptuous furs, drink sweet elderflower wine and gaze at the night sky. Others, they strip away every layer of uncertainty and grief and heartsickness that has lingered within them, wrapped so wholly in one another that the walls of the keep could fall down around them and they would scarcely notice. 

Tonight, it is enough to lie together in the big Orlesian bed that she rarely uses because she is usually far too content to sleep in his quarters. They spend hours in silence, undressed and pressed skin to skin, doing nothing more than holding each other. It is a sorely needed comfort for them both. 

She falls asleep first, travel-fatigued. As pleased as he would be to hold her in his arms all night, when in slumber she rolls onto her side and just out of his arms, he doesn’t draw her back in. He enjoys watching her almost as much as he enjoys holding her. She is still close enough to touch--that is all that matters. 

She doesn’t sleep long, or perhaps he is too intoxicated by her to notice the passage of time. He hears her stir, feels the weight of the bed shift ever so slightly, and then she is turned towards him. Her eyes are still glazed, half-lidded, and her hair is tousled. She is too tempting, sinfully so. She gives him a sleepy smile, leaning into the touch when he cups her cheek and strokes it with his thumb. She holds the soft fur blanket to her breasts but it has slipped from her hip, exposing the silken skin of one thick thigh, the curve of her hip bone.

“You let me fall asleep,” she accuses, though there is little more than teasing to color her words. 

“You needed it.” He chucks her under the chin, and when he lightly drags his thumb over her lower lip, she latches onto it with her teeth. He shoots her a look that suggests he might be exasperated if she wasn’t so endearing. 

When she concedes his captured thumb, she presses a kiss to the rough pad and smiles winningly at him. The grin has no sooner crept onto her face than it slides from her lips, softening into a tender look. “I missed you,” she tells him in a terribly small voice. 

“And I you.” He meets her gaze with his own, and the flood of emotions it brings nearly knocks the breath out of him. His throat feels tight, and he swallows almost audibly. He smooths her hair with a gentle hand--a fool’s errand to ever attempt to tame Rosalind Trevelyan’s wild copper mane--then brushes his lips against her forehead. 

She moves into his arms again, and they are a tangle of limbs and soft kisses. His fingers thread through her hair and he tugs gently. She moans into his mouth, and her hands are on his shoulders, fingernails biting into his skin. 

“ _Cullen_ \--” When she pulls away, her seaglass eyes are dark, wild, searching his face. Her own face is filled with a raw need. It has been so very _long_. 

He wants to-- _needs to_ \--touch her so badly, to feel her against him, to writhe beneath him and cry out his name. But he _can’t_. Not today. Not when Kinloch doesn’t seem so far away. When he can’t stand the sight of himself. It is difficult enough to allow himself to be near Rosalind in this state, as understanding as she is about all he has gone through, but he can’t stand the thought of being _with_ her-- of _touching_ her, _sullying_ her in some way. Not when she loves so much to touch him, to please him. 

These are hardly rational thoughts, but that does not put them from his mind and that does nothing to abate the white hot shame or the fear he feels when he thinks of it. It does not banish the trembling, the terror, the sickness of it. 

But he still wants her. It is raw and it is an _ache_. 

There are few real solutions they have found, and none that have been implemented particularly well that haven’t involved simple self-restraint, or the agonizing decision to spend time apart until the awful feeling vacated him. 

Still, there are those they haven’t tried. And watching her now, touch-starved, gaze heated, lips parted in supplication, he can barely deny her--or himself--that. 

“Do you trust me?” He asks her, voice soft, just short of faltering

There is no hesitation in her answer. “With my life, Cullen.” 

He smiles by way of response and disentangles himself from her and from the blankets, crossing the floor to her wardrobe. Below it rests a pair of fancy Orlesian shoes he knows she has never worn--and if she gets her way, won’t ever wear. He plucks out the satin ribbons that lace up the ankle. He does not miss the way her eyes track his every move when he returns to the bed and slides back in. 

He smooths out the ribbons and lays them down between them. She worries at her lower lip, inquisitiveness breaking through her expression. 

“I want you--” he clears his throat, lowers his voice, softened. “I want you so _badly_. But I can’t. There are things I can’t put from my mind and I don’t know--”

She silences him with a finger to his lips. “I understand.” Her lips curve into a smile and she kisses him softly. She takes hold of one of the ribbons, rubs the smooth fabric between her thumb and forefinger. “And these?” 

“They may help--if you’ll agree.” He is painfully aware of how red he must be, from his cheeks and the tip of his nose, to the tips of his ears. 

She takes very little time to consider before she nods, and hands the ribbons to him. “For you, anything.” 

He has tied many knots over the course of his life: with rope, for functional purposes, not meant to be easily untied or with comfort in mind. It’s only slightly terrifying to undertake the task ahead of him. He moves carefully, slowly, trying to replicate a single column tie with the slick white fabric. She watches as he winds the fabric around her slim wrist, not a hint of trepidation on her face. If anything, she seems enthralled. He thinks, maybe, this should concern him, but it only has the opposite effect. When he is reasonably sure the ribbons are neither painful nor too tight, he slips the other end through the ornate woodwork of her bed’s headboard. It takes far less time for him to repeat the process with her second wrist, and when he’s through, he draws back to admire his work.

This isn’t something he ever expected to partake in, let alone enjoy. He’d heard about such things from barracks gossip, or whispered on the wind in an Orlesian ballroom. At the time, it embarrassed him deeply to even think about. Now, seeing Ros, arms tied overhead with delicate ribbons, lovely breasts thrust outward, the perfect arch of her back--it has stolen his breath. 

He looms over her, kissing her lips tenderly. She sighs softly against his mouth, and he knows she must be eager for more, the way she lifts her chin to taste more of him, tongue tracing the seam of his lips. When he draws away from her, it brings forth a plaintive mewl. 

The next place his skin makes contact with hers is the slide of his fingertips up the length of her spine, the flat of his hand between her shoulder blades, his palm cupping the back of her neck. He dips his head to press his lips to her skin, taking in her familiar woodsmoke and wildflower smell. He is gentler with her than he wants to be, taking care to take his time. In the end, it will be better for both of them if he draws it out. Maybe--maybe by the end he will be able to breathe without the weight on his chest. But he is far more interested in the act of recovery, the steps it takes to get there, than recovery itself. 

He circles her neck with a wreath of kisses, nipping at the place where her neck and shoulder join. He feels her shiver below him, feels it in her chest when she takes in a sharp breath at the press of his cold hand against her hip. His lips trail lower, raining languid kisses down the delicate column of her throat, her sternum, between her breasts, to the perfect twin freckles that mark her skin there. He lifts his gaze, eyes trained on her face, even as his mouth trails to her left breast. He catches her nipple between his lips, watching with wonder the changes on her face. Pulling away with the barest graze of teeth, he hears the sharp gasp over his head, and something warm stirs in his chest. He laves the hardened, rosy peak with the flat of his tongue in apology. He can feel it begin, the slow unraveling, the way he brings her back to earth, back to herself, when she has spent so much time crushed under the weight of expectation. 

He showers gentle attention on her, the sounds of her sighing softly above him music to his ears. He indulges her neglected breast with equal ardor, savoring the taste of her skin on his tongue. When he sucks a purpling bruise into the soft flesh, it draws a high keening noise from her, and he lifts his head to be sure he hasn’t crossed the threshold into pain. Her face is flushed, lip bitten dark red, her eyes glassy and heavily lidded. She’s enjoying this every bit as he is, as he’d hoped. 

Reassured, he bows his head again, pressing sweeter kisses to the swell of her breasts. The hand on her hip drifts lower, tracing the curve of her thigh. The backs of his fingers slip to the juncture of her legs, daring to do no more than stroke small circles with his thumb in the soft flesh of her inner thigh. She is softer here than other parts of her body, thighs thick and alluring, and there are fewer places he would rather be--at present or ever, really--than between her thighs. He nudges her thighs apart a fraction, enough to nestle his hand against her. Beneath soft auburn curls, she is delicious heat, pressed into his palm. 

Her hips tilt and she grinds down against him with what slight purchase their position has afforded her. It brings a soft laugh from his throat, and he smiles against her skin before he latches onto her nipple again with his teeth. Her body bows and trembles. 

Slowly, painstakingly slowly, he slips a digit between her folds. She is already slick and so impossibly warm that it feels obscene. He presses another digit into her, feeling the way her walls flutter around him. There is a roiling heat building in the pit of his stomach, and it escapes his throat in a low groan. If only she knew how this was killing him. 

He hears her breath catch in her throat when he draws his fingers from her and slides them back in, and then the sound of a kittenish mewl when he twists his wrist to give and take slowly, too slowly for her. 

“ _Cullen_ ,” she pleads through a strangled moan. 

Sweat glistens on her brow, gives her face an ethereal glow in the firelight. She has always been beautiful, but to see her laid bare with hair splayed, cheeks flushed and eyes fluttering, moaning his name -- it is something else entirely. 

He doesn’t surrender to her, not yet. Not when he knows he can do so much more for her. He curls his fingers into her, savoring the way her body arches into his, the way it trembles. At the first pass of his thumb over her clit, her hips buck against him and she cries out. He strokes her clit and his fingers delve into her, and he basks in the litany of moans his attentions earn him. He can feel the tension in her thighs as they squeeze around his wrist, feel the way her chest rises and falls as she begins to pant. He watches her face, rapt. 

And then, he delivers to her sweet release. 

Her breath hitches, and then she’s coming, quivering around his fingers, ragged moans tearing from her throat. Her bound wrists flex above her head, and he knows that she must ache to touch him now. 

“Rosalind--” his voice is a low hum in his chest. He catches her gaze with his own when she lifts her glassy eyes to his face. She looks dazed in a satisfied sort of way. He draws nearer to her, their faces mere centimeters apart. He can feel her warm, sweet breath on his lips. “If you could see yourself…” 

“Oh yes, I’m sure it’s lovely, and not at all scandal-inducing.” The levity in her words is tempered only by the dreamlike quality of her voice. 

“You,” he grouses without real conviction, “are a minx.” The kiss he presses to her lips is far from innocent, and it does little to quench the thirst that has been building slowly within him. He reaches overhead, beginning to loosen the satin ribbons from the headboard. 

Her face and words are suddenly very sincere. “Did they help?” 

This gives him pause. He glances down at her, satin-bound wrists in hand, studying her face. Concern is etched across her features, from her pinched brow to her pouting mouth. He’s overwhelmed with the depth of her care and her love, and today just like all his days, he thanks the Maker that he was afforded the privilege of knowing and loving Rosalind Trevelyan. 

Finally, a smile pulls gently at his lips. “They did.” 

White satin ribbons fall to the bed and he raises her wrists to his lips, pressing tender kisses to each.

**Author's Note:**

> Those Orlesians and their stupid fancy shoes.
> 
> Thank you for reading ~


End file.
